


instructions on how to disappear

by potstickermaster



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, i dont know as per usual, might be angst?, post-reveal nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 08:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18406931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potstickermaster/pseuds/potstickermaster
Summary: 6. Wear glasses.Supergirl is on the news that morning. She is caught on camera saving a boy and even gives it a bright smile and a wave—both far too familiar for Lena that her knees buckle at the thought of Kara. Funny how a simple ponytail and glasses could change one’s appearance. That, or love is indeed blind.





	instructions on how to disappear

**Author's Note:**

> everyone else: write!!! the cuddler!!!!!!!! epilogue!!!!!!  
> me: here have a drabble literally no one asked for 
> 
> “Instructions on How to Disappear” is a collection of short stories by Gabriela Lee, as well as the title of the final story in said book.

 

**10\. Go alone.**

She feels as empty as her hotel room when she gets home. The cotton in her throat hasn’t left and her eyes burn but she ignores the sting of tears, quickly heading to her liquor cabinet to grab a bottle of whiskey. Glass skipped. Lena uncaps it and takes a long swig, letting the alcohol burn the cotton in her throat. It’s pain she can point out.

_I’m Supergirl._

Kara’s voice echoes in her ear. It overlaps with an image of Supergirl looking at her like she was a Luthor when Lena told them of the kryptonite, _I’ve had your back so many times, when the rest of the world was ready to pass you off as the next Luthor,_ Supergirl’s soft apology of _you’re right, I always see red, I’m sorry,_ after Alex’s defense of Lena, of Kara saying _I will always protect you_ and _you know me_ and Lena can’t help but wonder where she went wrong.

It’s ironic and painfully funny how Lena had been so careful about making Supergirl and her friends trust her—because she’s not a Luthor, she’s not her brother or  her mother and _god, please, I’m trying so,_ so _hard to show you that I’m good, that I am one of you, that I just want to be the hero Supergirl once thought I could be—_ that she hasn’t considered, for a moment, that she might not be able to trust _them._

In the darkness of her hotel room, Lena cries, soft unlike the devastation she feels.

 

**9\. Clean your room.**

Her head throbs with pain when she wakes up on her bed next morning, work skipped, bottles of whiskey and wine empty on the kitchen floor. Phone ignored on her bedside table despite its incessant vibrating, Lena pads quietly to the kitchen, reaches for water instead of wine and drinks it until she feels like she could feel again then stares at the empty bottles on the floor.

She picks them up. Then she arranges the things she has in her pantry—coffee, sugar, Kara’s ketchup, bottles of wine, chips well on their way to being stale because Kara is the only one who eats them and her hotel room’s walls hasn’t heard her voice in weeks. Months? Lena isn’t sure. It doesn’t matter.

She calls the hotel management that day to say that she is moving out, finally, after two years, and the manager sounds utterly surprised but isn’t really able to say anything aside from _we’ll have it cleaned up before you go, Ms. Luthor._

“No need,” Lena says, already on her way to her bedroom and pulling out one of her two suitcases. “I can clean up myself.” She always does. It’s one of Lillian’s teachings. Clean up your own mess.

She doesn’t know how to feel when she finishes two hours later, and her hotel room—her home for the past two years—looks ready for its next occupant like Lena never existed.

 

**8\. Lose all possessions.**

When Lionel died, control for Luthor Corp was immediately passed to Lex, with Lillian doing her work from the shadows like Lena always guessed she was. When Lex went to jail for his crimes, Lillian never really emerged, and Lena had to take over. After all, that was what double-majoring in bio-engineering and business management was for, what graduating a year earlier was for, what her entire life was for.

She at least had L-Corp, for one. Despite everything, she has it, and Lena can’t just drop it because she wants to _leave._ And so she does the next best thing: implements management protocols, transferring approvals and important projects to the Metropolis headquarters, where it all began. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to the board but Lena assured them with numbers and figures and talks of money—a language they can understand—that it would work out just fine, unaware of how things were certainly not fine with the CEO.

It doesn’t matter, in the long run. Personal lives and business do not mix. Perhaps that is why Kara said those things. Lena likes to think she understands.

_To me, it’s personal._

_It is for me, too._

CatCo was another thing. James was still CEO, after all, and she just has to have financials cleared on a monthly basis. All things she can do remotely. Everything else physical and still usable is donated, all recyclables are sent to a recovery facility.

She didn’t really own anything else that needed saving.

 

**7\. Burn your pictures.**

There’s a picture of her and Kara in her office, from that one visit to an arcade, taken in a photo booth Kara practically begged her to go into. She could still hear Kara’s laughter. She folds it in four, Kara’s smile hidden away, and hides it in a book she knows she won’t read again.

_Have I told you you’re my favorite person?_

She swallows the thickness in her throat, takes the book, and hides it away in a vault she will never get to open again.

 

**6\. Wear glasses.**

Supergirl is on the news that morning. She is caught on camera saving a boy and even gives it a bright smile and a wave—both far too familiar for Lena that her knees buckle at the thought of Kara. Funny how a simple ponytail and glasses could change one’s appearance. That, or love is indeed blind.

The thought of it makes her throw up, pain in her chest and emptiness in her stomach.

_What’s your kryptonite?_

_Do you know what it’s like to walk into a room and your skin feel like it’s going to be seared off your bones? Or like nails are running through your blood? That’s what kryptonite feels like._

Maybe this is as close Lena could get. Then again, a lot of other things in this planet could kill her—cars, fire, the words of people she loves.

 

**5\. Hide from your friends.**

Alex tries to call. She tries to call several times and Lena lets it ring to voicemail. Kara tries, too. Lena half-expects her to and on her office balcony while she is preparing for her departure but she doesn’t, and Lena doesn’t know if she should feel disappointment or relieved. The whiskey in her coffee does make sure all she feels is bite on her tongue and needles on her hands, and she is grateful.

Jess asks her if she’s sure she wants to skip lunch for the third time in a week. Lena only smiles at her tightly and tells her to go home early, like three days ago, and Lena doesn’t see anyone else but her reflection on her laptop screen when it shuts down as she is getting ready to leave.

Kara—Supergirl? she doesn’t know anymore—doesn’t drop by. Lena thinks it’s for the best.

 

**4\. Change your name.**

The envelope sits on the bed of the hotel room she rented for her last few days. It’s filled with the documents she needs. Lena touches it with reverence. It’s almost unbelievable how easy it is to leave a life behind, but she supposes that is always the case when you have nothing to leave.

 _Tess Mercer,_ her shiny new passport reads. Lena stares at her photo. Tess. Tess. _Tess._ She would have to get used to it, but if there was anything she was good at, it was pretending.

 

**3\. Forgive.**

She likes to think she and Kara can be friends. It’s hope she doesn’t feel confident in holding on to, immediately crushed by the thought of looking at Kara’s face and hearing Supergirl’s anger and disappointment again. Lena cannot fault her for that, she knows, but for all her lack of self-preservation it feels like it’s going to be constant torture, being friends with Kara again, and as strong as she thinks she has become through the years—constant assassination attempts and betrayals did that to you—she doesn’t think she can handle that.

It’s selfish, she knows. She comforts herself with the idea that she could let herself be, just this once. She thinks of Kara, most days, and wants to turn around, but she drowns herself in work and whiskey until there is nothing else to think about but keeping her hands stable enough to type emails.

 

**2\. Forget.**

Memories. They are fragile things, the way the human mind and the human heart are. She almost laughs at the memory of Lillian calling it _an overrated organ_ and maybe she’s right.

That night, Lena checks in to a penthouse unit over at Metropolis. She visits the L-Corp building well into the evening, and by midnight there is sunshine in her mind.

 

**1\. Close  your eyes.**

The gentle billowing of a cape,

the quiet thud of boots,

and a sigh, soft and heavy.

Tess looks up from her laptop, amusement raising an eyebrow as she looks at the woman who quite literally just landed on her balcony wearing blue tights, a short red skirt and a cape. Her office is quiet, unlike the rest of Metropolis. Tess fully turns to her, intrigued.

 

 

“And who are you, exactly?”


End file.
